There is a person – or maybe more than one person – living and working within this map who shot, dismembered, and posthumously whitened the teeth of a local plumber. That person, wielding a rifle and chainsaw, is still at large. They may be storing their weapons under their marital bed or in their basement or at their place of work. They may be keeping them in their Volvo so they can evade capture, if and when the police catch up with them. Maybe they’ve sunk the evidence in Snake River or in the depths of Utgard forest. A gun and a bloody saw and some tooth pliers and drilling equipment, and half a dozen or more elk skulls.

Lena opens the door from her office. She has her phone in her hand.

Her lips say, ‘Call for you.’

I put in my hearing aids and give her a thumbs up. She puts the call through.

‘Tuva Moodyson.’

‘Ms Moodyson, hello, I’m glad I caught you. This is Margareta Sofia Erikkson from the Hive self-storage in Visberg town. How are things with you today?

‘Fine. What can I do for you?’

‘Well, I was talking to my son, and Emil told me you’d been making extensive enquiries round the town about this awful business. I wanted to, well, he wanted to…’

‘Go on.’

‘Do you have plans, Ms Moodyson? Sunday-dinner plans, I mean? It’s just that we haven’t had a chance to say our piece yet. Do you have any plans?’

‘Dinner plans? I could come over to interview you, if you like.’

‘That’s all good and dandy, but Emil and I always share a proper hot Sunday dinner, have done ever since before his daddy passed. Call it six sharp?’

I look over at Lars’s empty desk. Seb’s empty desk. Maybe I work too much?

‘I’ll be there.’

‘Very good.’

She calls off.

On the way out of Gavrik, I notice two pumpkins flanking the entrance to Grimberg Liquorice. One has an upturned, carved smile and the other has a downturned grimace.

The sky is the colour of cheap, laminated chipboard – a huge white slab of the stuff.

Chris Isaak on the radio. ‘Wicked Game’, the one from Wild at Heart. My driver’s window is ajar. The steam from the sewage works leaches into the truck.

The music changes to some kind of Gregorian chanting. Humming and echoing like it was recorded inside a monastery. Or a cave.

When I arrive in the hill town, I see a horse in the town square. Sitting on top of it is Sheriff Harry Hansson, except today he’s in his Sunday best and he really does look like a sheriff. Like some freak accident of space-time has dumped a man from Alabama or Mississippi into Visberg, Värmland.

I park up and walk over.